On 1 August 1832, the thirteen-year-old
Princess Victoria of Kent made her first entry into her diary; it
was a diary, as she described it on its title page, which had been
given to her by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, at Kensington
Palace the day before. Bound in red, the diary bears the stamp of
her name in gilt letters: “H.R.H The Princess Victoria”; it had
been given to her so…
On 16 March 1861, the Duchess of Kent,
born Princess Marie Louise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and by
her first marriage, Princess of Leinigen, died at her residence of
Frogmore House, in Windsor Great Park. Though she had been mother
to Queen Victoria, the Duchess of…
Today, Queen Elizabeth will be entering
her 67th year as monarch. A feat never achieved before by a British
monarch. She will not be celebrating the occasion because the date
also marks the anniversary of her father’s death. The next
nationwide celebrations for a…
The spectacular pyramids which cover the
tombs of the pharaohs are well-known, but the long-running
excavation of the Western Cemetery at Giza has recently discovered
the tomb of a female official from around 4500 years ago. Egypt’s
Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery at the weekend, the
high-ranking palace official has been called “Hetpet” and is
thought to date from the Fifth…
With invitations set to go out this week
for the biggest event of the year, rumours are circulating over who
has been invited to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, and
also, those who will be staying away. Until May 19th, we will not
know who will sit in the…
Today, Queen Elisabeth Christine of
Prussia (1715-1797) enjoys a kind of historical exile, banished to
footnotes and paragraphs amidst the mountainous body of
biographical material which exists about her exalted husband,
Frederick II, King of Prussia, already christened…
Animals given to royalty could, of
course, become pets – but they could often be presented in the form
of political gifts, adding therefore to the monarch’s personal
sense of majestas. An example of this is the bay horse and three
brood mares, sent to Henry VIII by Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of
Mantua in 1514. The personal prestige of the monarch was also
flattered by the exotic nature of…
Born on 23 August 1740 to the Duke
Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick-Luneburg and his wife Anna Leopoldovna,
Ivan was the only grandson of the former Tsar of Russia Ivan V, and
consequently in line to the Russian throne. His mother was the
niece of Empress Anna and expected that…
Alongside the well-established royal love
of dogs, cats are far less recorded as preferred pets, unlike their
canine counterparts. They have, however, been no less loved by
those that did own them. So revered were cats (“mau”) as sacred
animals in Ancient Egypt that they…
One of English history’s ‘forgotten’
queens, is actually one who was arguablyamong the most loved. This
was Mary II, the joint monarch – not queen consort of William III.
Forgiven by posterity for deposing her father, contemporary history
seems to have accepted this as being something of a regrettable
necessity to safeguard England as a Protestant nation. Known for
her love of…
